Soldiers left their barracks and blocked streets in several towns and cities across Ivory Coast on Friday, including the commercial capital, firing gunshots into the air as their protest over a pay dispute gathered momentum.

Scores of Nigerian schoolgirls who were among more than 200 kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 have been released, multiple sources told AFP on Saturday, with unconfirmed reports that at least 80 have been freed.

A car bomb near a hotel on a busy street in the Somali capital killed at least 13 people on Monday, police and the emergency medical services said, hours after a man was killed by a blast as he tried to ram through a checkpoint.